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- Aug 19, 2003
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Hello everybody. Here is my situation. I entered the University of Illinois with a fairly weak high school science and math background. For example, I never took Pre-Calc until my junior year in COLLEGE. Now after my third year I have finally completed Calculus I. I am a Psychology major and have done well in all of my classes except Economics ( C+ ). Everything else has been above that. I have a 3.528 GPA so far. I also did not test into General Chemistry but Intro but Intro was not offered for the spring and so I had to take it this summer. As you can see I'm behind. I read on-line looking for hope and stumbled on postbac programs. I learned really fast about all of them, the different kinds ( special masters, traditonal 2 year, special 1 year with general chem over summer, underrep min and underpriv pref, if you'e applied and had a bad mcat core and so didn't get in etc ).
I plan on taking General Chemistry this next year and so I will finish it off and do 2 semesters of postbac before I take the MCAT. But, I will do a lot of hours in both years and so I feel 2 years of solid work should be fine. I plan on being a Psychiatrist and got interested in the field after taking Abnormal Psych and Physiology. I not only got As in both classes, but I aced Abnormal ( 99.4% ) and got 100% on the Autonomic Nervous system dominated exam ( 100% ) in Physio and that was basically all Psychiatric material both. So, I feel that this is an area I feel very comfortable in. I will volunteer this year as well and plan on taking Physics I, II; Organic I, II; Biochem and Bio I, II all in Postbac.
I feel I will be alright except I took REALLY light courseloads my 1st two years, again because I had a weak high school background and didn't feel comfortable. ( average of 13 hours for each semester first 2 years ) My junior year was heavier but still fairly light, only 15 and 14 hours each semester. Now in the fall I will take 18 hours and the spring looks like 16 hours. I plan on doing enough science classwork to be around 16 or 17 hours each semester in Post Bac.
I belong to some extracurricular activities and hold a leadership role in only one of them though Lord knows I have tried
Still, I just wanted to tell me a little bit and see if anyone can give me some helpful advice? I already have started to pickup MCAT verbal books ( though not entire MCAT prep books ) so I can ace verbal ( generally not a solid section for me though on the SAT I did extremely well on Reading Comp only missing a few questions ).
I plan on taking General Chemistry this next year and so I will finish it off and do 2 semesters of postbac before I take the MCAT. But, I will do a lot of hours in both years and so I feel 2 years of solid work should be fine. I plan on being a Psychiatrist and got interested in the field after taking Abnormal Psych and Physiology. I not only got As in both classes, but I aced Abnormal ( 99.4% ) and got 100% on the Autonomic Nervous system dominated exam ( 100% ) in Physio and that was basically all Psychiatric material both. So, I feel that this is an area I feel very comfortable in. I will volunteer this year as well and plan on taking Physics I, II; Organic I, II; Biochem and Bio I, II all in Postbac.
I feel I will be alright except I took REALLY light courseloads my 1st two years, again because I had a weak high school background and didn't feel comfortable. ( average of 13 hours for each semester first 2 years ) My junior year was heavier but still fairly light, only 15 and 14 hours each semester. Now in the fall I will take 18 hours and the spring looks like 16 hours. I plan on doing enough science classwork to be around 16 or 17 hours each semester in Post Bac.
I belong to some extracurricular activities and hold a leadership role in only one of them though Lord knows I have tried
Still, I just wanted to tell me a little bit and see if anyone can give me some helpful advice? I already have started to pickup MCAT verbal books ( though not entire MCAT prep books ) so I can ace verbal ( generally not a solid section for me though on the SAT I did extremely well on Reading Comp only missing a few questions ).